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The crazy thing about social media mobs is how few people engage in them. A few hundred or thousand people angrily tweet about something -- who cares, right?
by nostromo 8y ago
The crazy thing about social media mobs is how few people engage in them.
A few hundred or thousand people angrily tweet about something -- who cares, right? Wrong. Cable media cares. They pick up a few of the most inflamitory examples from Twitter (it's easier to find quotes on Twitter than it is to go outside and report) and they present these tweets as if they represent a mainstream movement involving millions.
And these angry (but tiny) mobs are having an enormous impact on private companies and public policy. The tail is wagging the dog.
- 21 8y agoSee this account which is used to organize mobs. The current target is Breitbart, and apparently the campaign is quite successful (they are listing 4000 advertisers which supposedly dropped support): https://twitter.com/slpng_giants https://twitter.com/slpng_giants
- JustMatthew 8y agoWow. That account has over 180,000 unpaid followers. That's quite literally a small army (for reference, it appears the number of active duty US marines is around 200k). Without commenting on the causes this (or any other) army of followers believes in, it's staggering to imagine what kind of impact monetary incentives, dispersed, for example, by way of an autonomous smart contract that is funded by anonymous donors via 'x' cryptocurrency that relies on some simple proof of action for payout, could have on the frequency and magnitude of actions such groups carry out. We really are at the beginning of a new chapter in the history of humanity.